This “nutshell” history of Remington is excerpted from materials recently submitted to the Virginia Department of Historic Resources on behalf of Fauquier County. The report is written by Maral S. Kalbian, Architectural Historian, dated March 20, 2002, and her sources include “Welcome to Remington: A Walking Tour”, and Eugene M. Scheel’s “The Guide to Fauquier” (1976):

Members of the Stone and Bowen families originally owned the land on which Remington is located. The area was settled in the early- to mid-19th century and from 1839 was known as Millview, in reference to a mill along the nearby Rappahannock River. The community was renamed Bowenville around 1850, and again changed to Rappahannock Station after 1852 when the Orange and Alexandria Railroad was completed through town. In 1890 the name was changed once more, this time to Remington. According to one account, the name Remington was chosen because the citizens liked the way it sounded, while another story maintains it was chosen in honor of a well-liked railroad conductor named Captain Remington.

Remington is sited about 1?2 mile from the Rappahannock River. In January, 1829 the General Assembly granted the Rappahannock Company a charter to build a canal from Falmouth to Ward’s Mill in Rappahannock County. The canal was finally completed about 20 years later only to be overshadowed by the arrival of the Orange and Alexandria Railroad in the early 1850s. Whereas Remington’s earliest history was tied to the River and the mill it powered, the arrival of the train through the community spurred growth in a new direction. Architectural evidence supported by a cursory review of Civil War-era maps seem to indicate that the presence of the train did not substantially affect the town until after the Civil War.

Remington (then known as Rappahannock Station) was the site of much Civil War activity. Both sides fiercely contested control of the Rappahannock River and there was considerable destruction in the area, resulting in the loss of several buildings and structures. The town of Remington was included in the proposed Remington Station Battlefield District (23-5050) that was identified in the early 1990s as part of the Civil War Sites Advisory Commission’s survey. In addition, many of the surrounding hillsides have surviving earthworks.

Remington was officially chartered in March of 1890 and a new charter approved in March 1932. Three large fires in town, in 1895, 1919 and 1925, destroyed several commercial buildings. In spite of this, the dwellings, commercial buildings, and churches in town depict Remington much as it would have appeared in the early 20th century.”